Posted on 06/27/2008 7:53:28 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Most people would agree with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's assertion that the death penalty for child rape is not "proportional." Given that the court has not banned the death penalty — not yet — is proportionality relevant?
The Constitution does ban "cruel and unusual" punishment, and that was the provision where Justice Kennedy and his four colleagues found justification Wednesday for overturning the Louisiana law allowing the death penalty in child-rape cases. But the death penalty itself is not "cruel and unusual" — again, not yet — and the Constitution says nothing about proportionality. Indeed, in the framers' time, all sorts of misbehavior that did not involve the taking of a life were considered hanging offenses.
The ruling reminded us of Justice Clarence Thomas' brief, pointed dissent in the infamous Lawrence case, in which the court overturned a Texas sodomy law. Echoing Justice Potter Stewart's dissent in the landmark privacy case Griswold vs. Connecticut, Justice Thomas called the Texas statute "uncommonly silly," then noted: "If I were a member of the Texas legislature, I would vote to repeal it. ... Notwithstanding this, I recognize that as a member of this Court I am not empowered to help petitioners and others similarly situated. My duty, rather, is 'to decide cases agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States.'"
Likewise, execution for a nonlethal crime is not proportional and out of step with prevailing mood in these enlightened times, but that's for the people of Louisiana and their elected representatives, not an overreaching Supreme Court, to decide.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
Proportionality is a political question, not a judicial one. The State of LA, through it's elected government, says the death penalty is proportional for child crimes. The fed’s can, and have, executed drug kingpins and traitors to the enemy (might be the only two capital federal crimes that are death eligible). Me, I don't personally support the death penalty. However, I believe the State, meaning individual states in the US, of the national government, are the only entities that can legitimately decide in cold blood that someone deserves to die, and if most people in a State feel that the death penalty is appropriate in given types of cases, I think their opinion should trump mine. Therefore, in my view, if the people of LA want to execute child rapists, and a court and jury decides a guy is a child rapist, I think it's perfectly legit to give him the hot shot.
Proportionality is a political question, not a judicial one.”
Case closed.
It was a slap in the face to the American people that the Supreme Court would suggest that a "usual" punishment was "cruel and unusual".
The Court must either be stupid, corrupt or evil.
What evidence exists to suggest what 'unusual' meant in the context of the Eighth Amendment? In today's linguistic usage, it's roughly synonymous with "atypical", but I would wonder whether it would have meant "other-than-usual".
If the legislature provides that the punishment for graffiti tagging is 30 days in jail, then 30 days would be the usual punishment. If a judge were to, in lieu of the jail term, require that the 'artist' take a sanding block and sand off the graffiti, that would be an unusual punishment. If the artist were to decide that spending a few days sanding off graffiti would be better than spending a month in jail, that would suggest that the punishment, although unusual, was not illegitimately cruel.
Have there been any times prior to the twentieth century that the usual punishment prescribed for a particular crime has been struck down as "cruel and unusual"?
I guess I’d be a lot more inclined to argue the merits of this ruling, if there were any executions in this nation. There are so few that it’s almost pointless to argue the point.
California has 600 to 700 people on death row. Some of them have been there for decades.
Our justice system is broken. You can do anything you like to a fellow human being, even if they are a child, and you’ll get nothing more than housing and three solid meals per day, until you die of natural causes.
The court has a lot of nerve even taking this case seriously. If the guy could be killed for child rape, would he ever be executed? The chances of that are about 1/1000 people on death row, or close to that IMO.
What a disgrace.
BS
Unless by not "proportional" they mean that child rape is worse and therefore death is not enough. An hour or so handcuffed to a table with the parents having a few power tools and pliers....then give the child rapist (if still alive) the death penalty. Then maybe it would be "proportional".
Oh?
Here’s what Louisiana should do. Let the perp go. Set him free. Say, the SC is right, poor sod. Off with you and good luck.
Then see how far he gets.
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